The Dark River

Book Two of the Fourth Realm Trilogy

By: John Twelve Hawks

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

The Dark River opens in New York City with a stunning piece of news. Gabriel's father, who has been missing for nearly 20 years, may still be alive and trapped somewhere in Europe. Gabriel and his Harlequin protector, Maya, immediately mobilize to escape New York and find the long-lost Traveler.

Simultaneously, Michael orders the Brethren, the ruthless group that has been hunting Gabriel, into a full-scale search. Gabriel yearns to find his father to protect him; Michael aims to destroy the man whose existence threatens his newfound power.

The race moves from the underground tunnels of New York and London to ruins hidden beneath Rome and Berlin, to a remote region of Africa that is rumored to harbor one of history's greatest treasures. And as the story moves toward its chilling conclusion, Maya must decide if she will trade everything to rescue Gabriel.

Listen to the first book in this series: The Traveler.

©2007 John Twelve Hawks (P)2007 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"Engrossing....Part A Wrinkle in Time, part The Matrix and part Kurosawa epic." ( Publishers Weekly)
"John Twelve Hawks has drawn upon both pop-cultural and literary touchstones and modified them to create a cyber-1984." ( The New York Times)
"The stuff that first-rate high-tech paranoid-schizophrenic thrillers are made of." ( Time)

You'll love this book - everyone should read it!

What did you love best about The Dark River?

It takes us on the continuing journey of our traveler and harlequin as well as their entourage. The whole series is fantastic and should be required reading in my opinion. We need to know what is discussed in these books.

What about Scott Brick’s performance did you like?

Everything! he's a master narrator!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Better than laughing or crying - it made me think!

Should have read the reviews

I really liked the first book. It was exciting, fresh and dynamic. This book however, seems to drift along without much direction. Yes it moves but never really gets there. I found it hard to feel with the characters as they faced their trials.

The concepts explained in the book are very real. If they don't currently exist then there is a large possibility that they are being worked on in some underground lab, somewhere.

I am sure that this book is needed to get us to the 3rd in the series but I somehow feel that I may not be going that far.

Does not live up to the 1st book

This book just did not go anywhere and seemed to re-hash the 1st book. You will likely read it as did because you want to make up your own mind. If you go into it with low expectations you might not be disappointed. At the end you might expect there to be another chapter because the book just ends, not on a cliff hanger, but more like the author ran out things to say. Opps I ruined the surprise ending; there isn't one.

Disappointing!

This latest book from J. Twelvehawks is only about "SixHawks" worth. It's too bad we only got about half the quality for twice the credits. So, based on this, I guess the third book will cost us 3 credits and re-hash the first book even more. I will probably pass on book 3. If you read "The Traveler" and liked it, you'll be disappointed with "The Dark River". Maybe it should be named, "The Dark and Murky River", because the story line in this one certainly was.

Great Series

Good story telling and very believable.

Don't bother.. especially for two credits!

This gimmicky sequel takes the first passable novel and brings it to another level of boring. I'm starting to feel that John Twelve Hawks is living off the grid so you can't hunt him down and demand your money back for his pedestrian attempt at moving his series along. It's almost a rehash of the first book. Nothing more is really revealed that I can say I cared about and it ends with a completely lame cliffhanger. I'm writing this so hopefully no one else makes the mistake of wasting two credits on this publishing gimmick.

Disappointing

Where "The Traveler" was a fun beach read, the Dark River is disappointingly uneventful and has a lame ending (not really an ending because there is a third book in the works). It's really frustrating to read a book that's in the middle of a series that feels like it's just the warm-up for the actual story.

And as for the narrating: atrocious! All of the "foreign" accents sound like stereotypical Transylvanian accents. I've never heard an Italian person sound like Count Chocula before! Don't waste your money on this one.

The Dark River

Just Plain Great, very thoughtfull

boring

I was in doubt of whether get this sequel to "the traveler", and finally choose to give the doubt a chance.
In this particular case, wrong choice.
I got trough the first two chapters only before abandoning it.

The parts that were not yawn inducing, were irritating. I could find no joy or exitement in this text, better save your moolah.

The Dark River

This is a hugely disappointing sequel to the Traveller, not least because I was expecting it to be brilliant. I was hoping for a compelling story about an epic struggle between the ultimate conspiracy and its free spirited opponents. What was delivered was dull and bordering on clich?, the heroes were straight out of a ‘Die Hard’ movie and the villains just plain nasty. Scott Brick’s narration, usually fantastic, was also disappointing, his attempts at English regional accents we toe-curlingly bad. All in all I wouldn’t bother.